般姜鼠 (bānjiāngshǔ): someone who wastes effort point…

Meanings

Tā zhème xiā máng, jiǎnzhí jiùshì ge bānjiāngshǔ.

The way he's running around like a headless chicken, he's just spinning his wheels for nothing.

Méi xiǎng qīngchu jiù dòngshǒu, zuìhòu chéng le bānjiāngshǔ.

He got to work without thinking it through, and in the end all that effort was wasted.

register

Archaic and very rare in modern speech. You'll meet it in Ming-Qing fiction rather than daily conversation. Modern equivalents: 瞎忙活 or 白忙一场.

般 bān

姜 jiāng

鼠 shǔ